Episode 1.1
A time anomaly appears in the Forest of Dean, leading to the late Permian period, 250 million years ago. The team track down a fierce gorgonopsid that has come through. Plot In the car park of an ASDA near the Forest of Dean, a loose shopping trolley started to roll by itself, pulled by a strong magnetic field. A big therapsid-type animal came out of the Forest of Dean into the supermarket car park. Dr. Helen Cutter later disappeared in the Forest of Dean while investigating this. Eight years pass. In a zoo near the Forest of Dean, Abby Maitland is trying to get a pair of modern lizards to breed. At the "Central Metropolitan University" a student, Connor Temple, contacts Professor Nick Cutter, who, takes him into his lab and introduces his lab assistant Stephen Hart. Connor provides his thesis that all earth life is descended from life that came from across space. Nick slings Connor's thesis in a waste paper bin. He then shows Connor a fossilised fish and says that it is a Sarcopterygian, a type that (at the time of fossilisation) should have been extinct for 70 million years. He also shows a newspaper photograph of an apparently therapsid-type monster, taken recently in the Forest of Dean, and mentions monster hoaxes and the Loch Ness Monster. Connor says that the Loch Ness Monster died years before and that the Government covered up and removed the body. The zoo gets a routine call to collect a reptile from a private house. Abby goes to collect it. The boy, Ben Trent lived there with his mother. Ben said that he found it in the Forest of Dean and that he identified it from books as the modern South-East Asian gliding lizard Draco volans. Abby saw at once that it was not, but a new species, and asked Ben to show her where he found it. In the "Central Metropolitan University" there is discussion: Connor says the monster may be real; Nick says it would be a hoax. Cutter sympathetically advises Connor to get out more, get a girlfriend and forget about it, but Connor argues Cutter's wife wouldn't have ignored it. Cutter dismisses the idea of his wife being a gullible monster hunter, but when he becomes more interested when Connor mentions that the sighting was near the Forest of Dean. Connor convinces them to go to the Forest of Dean. They then find a big articulated lorry with its trailer's side torn open by huge sharp claws. The lorry driver says that a monster did it. They find a gap torn in a fence. Nick keeps his mind open, but Stephen thinks it's just a complicated hoax. When Connor questions Nick's interest, Stephen explains that the Forest of Dean was where Helen disappeared eight years before, but her body was never found. Shortly afterwards, at a nearby hotel, Cutter is approached and kissed by a young woman. She apologises, introduces herself as Claudia Brown, and explains that she kissed Nick to pretend he was her boyfriend to dissuade a would-be date. She explains she is from the Home Office, sent to investigate the monster report, and Nick invites her to join the search. Abby gets Ben to show where he found Rex. They go into the Forest of Dean, carrying the lizard (which is identified as a Coelurosauravus). They find a dead cow lodged up a tree. Ben blames a leopard, which often store their kills up trees. Abby says that there are no wild leopards in the Forest of Dean. Ben runs, leaving Abby behind. Abby stumbles while trying to catch up and Rex gets loose and flies about. Rex then starts chirping in alarm and hides under the bushes. Then a large therapsid goes past: Abby sees its reflection in a stream. Meanwhile Ben, sees the anomaly on his way home, as an area of fractured reflecting or refracting triangles counter-rotating in the air. Ben looks through it and sees lava desert, conifer forest, volcanoes, and several Coelurosauravus flying about. Ben then gets scared and runs home, locking himself in his room. Meanwhile Abby, still lost in the woods, finds a Scutosaurus and thus plant-eating and no danger, and meets Nick, Connor, Stephen and Claudia who have also found the Scutosaurus. The Gorgonopsid followed Ben home and pushes its head into Ben's bedroom. In panic he throws various things at it including a plasma ball, and in the end tries to resist with a toy Star Wars lightsaber, which scares the Gorgonopsid off. Later the team appear not to believe Ben, who insists "I saw the past". His mother writes it off as both their influence and television, which she says has encouraged him to make up 'wild stories'. Claudia mobile-phones the Home Office, and after an argument gets the Home Office to send an official, not the police. They then return to the woods to look for the strange anomaly Ben claims to have seen. As they arrive, a Gorgonopsid comes out of the forest. The frightened Scutosaurus then flees back through the anomaly, leading them to it, and disappears back home. Stephen and Connor are ordered to remain in the Forest of Dean to look for the predator while the others head for the Home Office. Rex is examined there; under examination by various instruments Rex takes wing and flies around in corridors, entering a lift and coming out at a top floor. He then flies out of a window, but Abby tempts him back with food appealing to Rex: "It isn't your world out there any more." During this Rex defecates on James Lester's smart business suit. James Peregrine Lester complains that "We've got contingency plans for everything up to and including alien invasion, and now this turns up. So much for thinking outside the bloody box." Lester's scientists prove the Lizard is a living fossil and realize that the monster and the strange lizard had to come from somewhere and that Ben's report of a world through the anomaly may be correct and may be earth in the late Permian period. Stephen and Connor find a big reptilian footprint which is not a Scutosaurus's. Connor identifies the possible culprit as a Gorgonopsid, stating that its presence is "really bad news". He sends Stephen off to look for the Gorgonopsid. Ben is in detention at his school when the Gorgonopsid goes past outside. He tells the teacher that there is a dinosaur outside. The teacher ignores this apparently silly remark. The Gorgonopsid then attacks the school, and tramples down all attempts by the teacher to barricade against it, It traps her and Ben in a classroom and tries to head-butt the door down. Stephen then appears and tries to distract the beast. It chases him. He is blocked by a stuck fire escape door, and he squirts a fire extinguisher at the beast. The blinded beast breaks out of the school and flees, leaving Stephen unconscious. Nick says they have permission from the Home Office to go through the anomaly. They go through it, (carrying Rex, as they plan to take him home to his own time and area) into an area of lava desert and conifer forest in the late Permian geological period; volcanos are in the background. They find remains of a human camp and a male human skeleton, and a camera marked "H(elen) C(utter)", showing that someone had been through before, and not only Helen. Tom Ryan climbs a hill of volcanic deposit and sees a herd of Scutosaurus. He climbs over a mound of scoria to find Cutter and get him back to the modern age in time, as the anomaly's magnetic field is now much less, showing that it is getting weaker, but Cutter wants to stay because he is desperate to find his wife. Ryan apologises and clubs Cutter with a pistol and carries him back towards the anomaly. Cutter gradually comes round, and resists with a fist fight, which Ryan wins and says "Don't try that again." Cutter threatens to stay. Ryan says he will stay also to guard him. Cutter says "don't be stupid", not wanting another also to be stranded there, and the two go back through the anomaly less than a minute before it closes. Rex also came back through. The Gorgonopsid then attacks the group in the modern world. Ryan and the two other armed men shoot the animal but it took many shots and several minutes before it finally goes down, including Stephen driving his SUV into it. Later, the film from Helen's camera is developed, showing pictures of Helen in the ancient landscape. After leaving and going back to his office, he notices a fossil coming to life - an ammonite - on his desk. He then catches sight of 'Helen', who smirks and walks off as he shouts after her. Errors Some characters misdescribe the therapsids as dinosaurs. The Coelurosauravus is shown as capable of level flight, not merely gliding. A text description in the Radio Times misdescribes the Coelurosauravus as a flying dragon. Cutter is shown counting the ribs of the skeleton to determine its gender. However that originates from a myth, male and female human skeletons do not differ in their number of ribs. External link Episode Guide on itv.com http://www.itv.com/Drama/cult/Primeval/default.html 1.1, Episode 1.1, Episode